


Glory Days

by lezzerlee



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Anniversary, Dinner, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2014-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-27 16:36:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2699804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lezzerlee/pseuds/lezzerlee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the Anniversaries of Operation Pitfall, Mako and Raleigh and have dinner together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glory Days

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this [prompt](http://lezzerlee.tumblr.com/post/81126874707/nightrevelations-replied-to-your-post-ficlet) from Nrem. Mako/Raleigh or Mako & Raleigh; Raleigh makes dinner. :D (“make dinner” can mean anything you want…)
> 
> I took this “makes dinner” more as they go to dinner. :D Though Raleigh making dinner is wonderful thought that I may explore more of later.

They don't celebrate the anniversary. Not like everyone else does: with parties more enthusiastic than New Year's, crowds filling the streets, confetti, fireworks, and alcohol. There are parades during the day, miniature Jaegers wheeled on carts as young pilots wave, sweating in their pilot suits underneath the blazing sun.

Raleigh and Mako are past their glory days, tired of the endless press junkets, hand waving and hand shaking, the same questions about lost teammates and family from perfectly coiffed journalists affecting precisely timed sympathetic nods.

What lingers after the fight is the loss, bruise colored days where they look over their shoulders expecting to see Yancy or Stacker. Pain lessens with time, but so does the mask of adrenaline, the nights of fighting and surviving no matter the obstacle.

Raleigh leads Mako the the back corner of a little restaurant. It’s full, despite the hour, but a table is marked by a slip of paper, “保留的” handwritten on one folded side. They don’t get recognized in the street as much anymore. There are new idols for the masses to obsess over, fresh-faced warriors with charisma and youth. But there are a few who remember. The store owner comes by and greets them personally, clasping first Mako’s hand and then Raleigh’s with a smile and a respectful nod.

Raleigh leans his elbow on the table, chin perched in his hand as he watches Mako settle into her space. She still wears color in her hair—red these last few months—despite the lines of age around her eyes and the silver strands scattered throughout the black. She glances up at him, quirking her lips into sad smile.

They haven’t drifted in years, but he knows exactly what she is thinking, what she is feeling. The ache echoes in his own heart. The night will play out like many nights before: with a small toast, with reflective silences, and with Mako making fun of him for still— “after all these years, really?”—not being able to properly use chopsticks. They will toast to the lost. They will toast to the future. But most importantly, they will find comfort in the routine, and the knowledge that someone else truly knows the depth of what they’ve lived through.


End file.
